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And only twenty episodes more to go. In eight days. Eep! Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

Occupation

The Cylons came to New Caprica to find a new way of life, to live in peace.Why not just leave the humans alone and live separately? Hey, it worked for fifty years for them.

I forgot that Jammer had been largely absent from the show in the latter half of Season 2 until I saw him here.

Tyrol, Sam, and Tigh are leading the resistance.Laura and Gaeta are aiding them.One of those two would be logical choices for the final Cylon.Yet, if we believe Ron and the final Cylon is not present in the Last Supper photo that rules Laura out.And Gaeta seems such an obvious choice at this point.

I love that Lee (rightly) argues with Adama about pushing the pilots in training…and then an accident happens. Heh.

Adama tears into Lee for becoming weak and soft, both mentally and physically.Adama is the one who chose Lee to command Pegasus because he had faith in him.If Lee has changed so much, why not ask him what’s wrong?

Was Helo living with Sharon in her cell?Adama certainly allowed her every other comfort.I was originally confused as to why Adama had reached out to Sharon, of all people, but I suppose he felt she was someone that he could relate to and vice versa.They were both isolated at that time, feeling very much alone, and dealing with a great deal of anger.

Sharon confesses to Adama that she was filled with rage for everything that had happened to her, but she came to realize it was all just guilt.She was angry at herself for the choices she had made.You would think that would include having a hand in the near annihilation of humanity, but, no, she only talks of betraying her people and losing her baby.Sharon’s motivations continue to confound me.She does love Helo and her child and she knows they cannot be a part of her world so she must be a part of theirs.And I believe she feels loyalty to Adama because he has shown her trust.But what if she lost all of that?Then what would she do?

Dee’s “you’re a soldier who needs a war” was the beginning of the end of her marriage to Lee.She really believed what she was saying, not realizing that while Lee needs a mission, something to fight for, he doesn’t need it to be war.And when he takes up the mission to defend Baltar, not because he believes he’s innocent, but because he has a right to a fair trial and not to be humanities scapegoat, she walks out on him.

Precipice

At the planning meeting for the rescue, Lee makes several good points, yet is made to look like the bad guy.Funny, no one actually disagrees with anything he has to say.

Adama shares with Lee that Sharon has informed him that the Centurions are unable to distinguish the humanoid models. The Cylons didn’t want the Centurions to become self aware and suddenly start to resist orders.They didn’t want their own robotic rebellion. Well, that plan went to hell.

Cally tells the one Cylon that might be able to help her, Boomer, that she’dshoot her again if she had a gun.::head desk::Cally’s stupidity should have gotten her killed back on New Caprica.

When did Sharon and Helo marry?

Zarek looks pretty good for being in detention for four months…hmmmmm.

Exodus Part 1

I’m no expert, but wouldn’t a child Kacey’s age be asking for her real mother?

Religion and mysticism continues to play a greater role in the show. How could the Oracle know Helo and Sharon’s baby is alive?

Why is Cottle saving badly injured Cylons if they can download?

Cavil mentions that the downloads are getting worse and worse.Downloading, living indefinitely, appears not to be the gift we and they once thought it to be.The original Cylon aim was to be close to human, but better.The Cylons believed love was needed to create life and some even came to believe that death was necessary to understanding and cherishing life.Perhaps the flawed downloading process was by design?

At some point Sam must have learned of Helo and Sharon’s child.When Sam was asked by Laura to protect Maya and Maya’s child at all costs, shouldn’t he have suspected the child was Hera?

Sharon to D’Anna:“Adama wouldn’t lie to me.” I seem to recall Kara saying that same thing to Laura in KLG.

Exodus Part 2

Lee to Dee:“Am I that easy to read?”

Me:“Yes, you are that easy to read, Lee.”Which is why I fail to understand how Dee and Adama can’t see what his real issues are.Oh, yeah, they want him to be the man they want him to be, not the man he really is.

Galactica jumping into the atmosphere and launching it's vipers is still one of the coolest and exciting effects shots I’ve ever seen.

Four basestars.I guess they should have listened to Lee. And didn’t he take out three of the four?Yet, he gets NO thanks.It’s Adama to the rescue. Not that I’m bitter…

If Hera was to help D’Anna find the true meaning of love and D’Anna quickly bonded with Hera then why did we never see her with Hera again?

Convenient how Kacey’s mother just happened to be on Galactica and on the deck when they disembarked.::rolls eyes::

Collaborators

As much as I love Laura and do feel she is the president they need, I find one aspect of her conversation with Zarek disturbing.Zarek tells her he’s a realist and that Adama has made it clear he would put him in a cell if he remained in power.Laura tells him it would be impossible to govern without the backing of the military.Zarek is, by law, the president.Adama is, again, threatening an illegal act to remove the president from power.And Laura is, essentially, working with Adama to oust Zarek and take over the presidency.That is a dictatorship and potentially not a benevolent one.

Sam to Kara: “I’m done.The wars over for me.”Really? Because I don’t think it’s over for any of the nearly 42,000 people in the fleet.

I know there are fans that view Sam as a pale imitation of Lee who was just brought in as a way to keep Lee and Kara apart.But it’s not Sam that is the problem here, it's Kara.Kara does to Sam exactly what she has done to Lee in the past. She tells Sam she’s in a different place now, but won’t elaborate as to what that means.She won’t open up to Sam, just as she won't with Lee.She’s destroying yet another relationship. When she declares, “I just want to hurt someone and it might as well be you.”, it could have just as easily been Lee. Kara was in such a painful and destructive place at this point, I'd say it was a good thing there was an existing wedge between she and Lee.

That Kara has to repeateverything Gaeta told her in front of everyone in order for his life to be saved is...really unrealistic.

Zarek was right, making the trials public would consume the fleet for months, even years.It happened with Baltar’s trial.And Laura fell into the trap Zarek warned her of, she did become the “executioner in chief “ as the need for justice blurred with the need for vengeance.

So was Laura “extending a general pardon for every human being in this fleet” a loophole?Baltar was not in the fleet when she granted those pardons.

Torn

Cylon projection was an interesting idea and I appreciate how it emphasized the machine part of the Cylon, but the concept went nowhere.

I feel I should care about Baltar’s time on the basestar, but I really don’t.

Now the Cylons want to make earth their new home.Why is everyone hung up on this planet.It’s not that awesome. ;p

Lee Adama has discovered the best weight loss plan ever!

After her reckless flying, Lee grounds Kara and she actually stays grounded.No reprieves from Adama this time.

The Lee/Helo workout scene – they really wanted to find a way to get Jamie’s shirt off.

Racetrack calls Sharon Boomer, to which Sharon quickly responds that Boomer is someone else.Even though many of the pilots did accept Sharon into their ranks, it’s interesting to note they didn’t necessarily see her as an individual and different from Boomer.

Once people settled back into a routine, the divisions between those that were on New Caprica and those that remained in the fleet surfaced.What Tigh and Kara did to destroy cohesion and morale is wrong, but I have to agree that life on New Caprica was much harder than life aboard Galactica.

Six shares with Baltar that most of the Cylons feel the words of the Hybrid are meaningless, a sign of madness.Only Leoben believes every word out of her mouth and that God speaks to them through her.Is Leoben’s connection to Kara because of the Hybrid?Leoben had to learn of Kara’s special destiny from someone/something.And the Hybrid is the only other individual/thing that seems to have an extensive knowledge of Kara.

Was the infected beacon left by the thirteenth tribe?Did it come from earth? Will we ever find out?

If Kara, who has always been loyal to Adama as well as a concerned senior pilot/CAG, is now “a malcontent and cancer”, in other words, not acting as the Kara that Adama has known for years would act, shouldn't he ask what happened?What is causing this change in behavior?It’s just like Lee’s weight gain.Adama sees the changes, but has no desire to find out the cause of those changes.

Deleted scenes:D’Anna turns over the care of Hear to Boomer and she’s none too happy about it. D’Anna makes the same assumption as Racetrack, the Sharon’s look alike and spent time amongst the same people, so they are interchangeable.

A Measure of Salvation

Not only did the Cylons not upgrade the plumbing, they didn’t find a way to dodge the flu.

I listened to the tech mumbo jumbo, but I still don’t now how a disease can be downloaded.It gives new meaning to the term computer virus. :p

The Cylons want a new beginning on earth, like they did on the Colonies.So is the plan to wipe out the thirteenth tribe should they be there?How do you have a fresh start if you keep slaughtering people???

I know Ron was toying with the idea of having Lee become a marine.The idea made little sense to me considering how intertwined, by necessity, the various military divisions had to become after the attacks.And while Lee has always had tunnel vision when it comes to the Cylons, Lee comes off a little too hard core here.It’s not that I can’t see him coming up with the plan to wipe out the Cylon race or lead the execution squad because he’s not the type to send others to do the dirty work.Perhaps it’s that he seems so devoid of emotion and that’s not like Lee.

I still cannot believe they had Helo say, “They tried to live with us on New Caprica.”And why was Helo even part of the conversation?It was Lee’s plan.Adama would have to initiate.Laura would have to approve it.Helo was the acting XO, but Tigh was seldom present at planning meetings between Adama and Laura.

Here’s where D’Anna’s motivations get confusing for me.Baltar tells her, “If we knew gods will then we’d all be gods.”Does she aspire to be a god?Does she repeatedly have herself killed in order to see the faces of the final five because, by seeing them, knowing them, she elevates herself?Is it about truth or power?And what of Baltar in all this?When he declares, “I believe in you…I love you with all my heart”, he’s talking to Head Six, but D’Anna believes the words are directed to her and she seems genuinely moved by them.Why would Baltar’s love change her?

Helo risked the lives of everyone on the fleet by sabotaging Lee’s plan.It would have been interesting if some of the pilots had died and Helo had to deal with the ramifications of that.

In KLG, we're told the ruins on Kobol are around 2,000 years old.Yet, in AMoS, Cottle states that the virus is an exact match to one reported over 3,000 years ago, right around the time the thirteenth colony left Kobol. There seems to be a bit of a descrepency there.

Deleted Scenes:There was *a lot* cut out of this episode.Caprica/D’Anna jealousies are hinted at.Kara confronts Leoben.Adama talks to the pilots about the president’s decision.Helo’s asked to be relieved from duty.Lee reinstates Kara the mission.Kara cockily stares at Lee.Sharon stares at Adama.Only that last moment I would have appreciated being kept in.Sharon had to be more disturbed by what she was asked to do then we had been shown.

Hero

This episode is a continuity headache.Suddenly, Adama has a command before Galactica, the Valkyrie.And Bulldog disappeared three years ago, a year before the attacks, when Adama was supposedly already stationed on Galactica.

Not only does Adama believe he started the attacks, we are meant to believe he had a hand in it.Yet, we know Caprica Six was on Caprica for at least two years prior to the attacks and Boomer was aboard Galactica.Cylons were already spread throughout the fleet and the colonies.They had a plan, not Adama's bad luck.

We never did find out why the Cylons let Bulldog go.Was it just to kill Adama?

Oh, there are other doctors in the fleet besides Cottle (I don’t count the crazy one shot doctor in ‘The Woman, King’.Cottle tells Bulldog to have Dr. Stopha call him as soon as Bulldog arrives on his new ship.

Unfinished Business

My main reason for doing a rewatch was to see if I noticed anything new about the plot arcs or if my opinion of them had changed.‘Unfinished Business’ really has nothing to do with the overall arcs, it’s about the characters, mainly Lee and Kara.As many of you know, I’m not a fan of the episode.And while, with the exception of a few moments, I loathe the extended cut, I decided to watch the extended cut.Rage would best describe my emotions as I watched.Most of that rage was directed at Kara.The interesting thing is as a mentally listed all the reasons I hated Kara Thrace in this episode, I had an epiphany as to why I love Lee Adama so much…but I’m not going to talk about that here.Yes, I’m evil.Actually, it occurred to me that it needs to be a separate post.With any luck, I’ll have something put together next week. :)

The Passage

I didn’t work out the exact math, but it seems to me with the number of pilots they have, number of raptors they have, and the number of ships in the fleet they didn’t need to make five round trips.And if they only needed to make two jumps and could rest between trips while people were moved from Galactica back to their own ships, why would they need stims?I do understand that some vipers and raptors would have been left on the other side of the star cluster to protect the rest of the fleet, but it still doesn’t work out for me.

As I mentioned before, D’Anna’s motivations are perplexing to me.Hera was to show her love, but she pawns the kid off on Boomer.Baltar proclaims his love and she’s hooking up with him.Then she decides to kill herself to see the final five and perhaps the face of god.Yet, she believes the Hybrid speaks nonsense.

Baltar is hoping for a get out of jail free card.If D’Anna has seen his face in the afterlife it could mean he’s a Cylon and there’s a reason he keeps betraying humanity.

Added to the jumbled storytelling is bad editing.We jump into the middle of a confrontation between Kara and Kat (deleted scenes show the scene was much longer and more fluid).Add to that an out of nowhere revelation that humans suspect Cylons infiltrated Caprica via criminals.

So what if Kat lied about who she was? Wasn’t the fleet desperate for pilots?Why should her past matter?

The Cylons came to New Caprica to find a new way of life, to live in peace. Why not just leave the humans alone and live separately? Hey, it worked for fifty years for them.That's a bit like asking why their newfound respect for human life didn't involve unstrapped some of the women chained up in their farms and brought them to New Caprica to live with the rest of their species. After all, there must be a lot - Anders claims to have destroyed a number of Farms, just in the limited area of Caprica his band would've had access to.

I forgot that Jammer had been largely absent from the show in the latter half of Season 2 until I saw him here.Have you rewatched the webisodes? I think half the point of those was to remind us that a) Jammer exists, and b) he's easily led.

If Lee has changed so much, why not ask him what’s wrong?My guess is that this is all tied in with Adama's ridiculous "I don't do guilt" statement; he knows objectively that they don't have any chance, but rather than dealing with that problem, it's much easier to just shout at Lee - and like any parent, he has a pretty good idea of how to attack his children.

You would think that would include having a hand in the near annihilation of humanity, but, no, she only talks of betraying her people and losing her baby.This is just one of the things that makes me ranty over the implied "let's all be friends" ending. I've not seen any sign that the main Cylon characters with experience of human interaction - Sharon, Boomer, Caprica - have any regrets over what they did to the human race, and their motivations are entirely personal. So given the nuke-happy response to humanity the mainstream Cylons had before and the lack of change in their fundamental attitudes towards humanity in the three or so years of series time, I don't see how they can be portrayed as anything other than unrepentent and hostile.

Dee’s “you’re a soldier who needs a war” was the beginning of the end of her marriage to Lee.And, ironically, only about their fourth or fifth scene onscreen together.

At the planning meeting for the rescue, Lee makes several good points, yet is made to look like the bad guy. Funny, no one actually disagrees with anything he has to say.I remain convinced this is all tied in with simplistic storytelling - making Adama look like the traditional risk-everything tv hero, and emphasizing his heroic nature by using Lee as a foil.

Have you rewatched the webisodes? I think half the point of those was to remind us that a) Jammer exists, and b) he's easily led.

Nope. Not rewtaching those or Razor. Partly due to time and partly because I don't feel they add that much to my rewatching experience. As I commented in an earlier post, I didn't realize how easily led Jammer was until I rewatched the Season 2 episodes. He showed several times that he'll just believe what he's told and go with the flow so his treason on New Caprica made sense.

I've not seen any sign that the main Cylon characters with experience of human interaction - Sharon, Boomer, Caprica - have any regrets over what they did to the human race, and their motivations are entirely personal.

I think Caprica has shown regret. With New Caprica she hoped to fix a mistake and when Caprica (the colony) is mentioned she appears visibly troubled. And, unlike Boomer and Athena, she understands why she's locked up and why they have such distrust and hatred of her. Nathalie also seem to be coming to some realizations before she was gunned down so I wonder if the Six line is more empathetic. That's not to say because a couple of Sixs have regrets everyone should forgive and forget, but I'm hoping it's just the start of showing why living together might be the best solution for both races.

Four basestars. I guess they should have listened to Lee. And didn’t he take out three of the four? Yet, he gets NO thanks. It’s Adama to the rescue. Not that I’m bitter…You and me both. And that's before the whole "here are the ten reason Lee sucks and is a coward unfit to be an officer for leaving Kara behind on New Caprica" posts drive my blood pressure up higher.

If Lee'd followed Adama's plan, both base stars would've been lost. Everyone would be dead. Strange that they don't mention this, given that the show used to pride itself on being grittily realistic.

Convenient how Kacey’s mother just happened to be on Galactica and on the deck when they disembarked. ::rolls eyes:: And very Anders to ask who the girl is, ignore the answer, ask again and then wander away while Kara implodes on the deck. :P

That is a dictatorship and potentially not a benevolent one.And yet whereas the nature of government was explored in earlier seasons, this plot point just floats away.

Really? Because I don’t think it’s over for any of the nearly 42,000 people in the fleet.True, but then Anders is the typical sporty teenage jock character; tall, fit, athletic and self-involved. Pretty much every conversation he has with Kara in S3 revolves around what he personally wants.

Kara was in such a painful and destructive place at this point, I'd say it was a good thing there was an existing wedge between she and Lee.Yup, I agree completely with you here. In fact, I'm possibly even more glad as a Lee/Kara shipper, because given Kara's attitude in LDYB II and in UB (particularly the extended edition) I have the feeling that if she and Lee were talking, he would've been her preferred target.

Cylon projection was an interesting idea and I appreciate how it emphasized the machine part of the Cylon, but the concept went nowhere.I can't help but think this is another case of them dropping in a "look how cool this is!" moment without any long-term plans for actually doing anything constructive with it.

I feel I should care about Baltar’s time on the basestar, but I really don’t.A chance to get a really good look at Cylon society, the role of the Centurions, attitudes, preconceptions, technologies... and we get mysticism and threesomes.

And very Anders to ask who the girl is, ignore the answer, ask again and then wander away while Kara implodes on the deck.

The first time he asked her he was trying to save her in the middle of a ground assault and get her to a ship. They really didn't have time to talk about it and I would have been WTF about a daughter considering she'd been missing for only four months. Back on Galactica, yeah he walked off, but we don't know why and we found out in the next episode that Kara was freezing him out. Sorry, I'm growing to like Sam more as the series progresses. ;)

In fact, I'm possibly even more glad as a Lee/Kara shipper, because given Kara's attitude in LDYB II and in UB (particularly the extended edition) I have the feeling that if she and Lee were talking, he would've been her preferred target.

Given Lee's attempts to get Kara to open up to him in 'Scar' and his constant desire to help her even when she doesn't want help, Kara would have treated Lee as well as, if not worse than, Sam. And after watching UB I wanted both men to get the hell away from her. But that's a vent for another post. :)

I can't help but think this is another case of them dropping in a "look how cool this is!" moment without any long-term plans for actually doing anything constructive with it.

I just wrapped up watching Season 3 and one of the deleted scenes for 'Crossroads Pt 2' has Athena explaining projection to Laura and Laura not understanding how she could possibly be a part of that. Perhaps the intent was to use projection to set Laura up as a possible Cylon. But in editing the hint/red herring out, yeah, it becomes rather pointless.

The Lee/Helo workout scene – they really wanted to find a way to get Jamie’s shirt off.Should we be grateful they couldn't find a way to have him sleep with a Cylon on screen too?

Was the infected beacon left by the thirteenth tribe? Did it come from earth? Will we ever find out?I suspect we won't - I think this was simply something done for dramatic purposes. Which is a shame, because I'd like to know why that probe was left behind - did the 13th tribe seed other probes along the route of their journey? If so, why haven't any been found?

Adama sees the changes, but has no desire to find out the cause of those changes.Adama doesn't change, does he?

I know Ron was toying with the idea of having Lee become a marine.Was the idea for Lee to become a marine? I remember hearing that he and Dee were going to get into shape by training with marines, but that was secondhand so I don't know how accurate it is.

Perhaps it’s that he seems so devoid of emotion and that’s not like Lee.Sad to say, while the use of biological weapons is something that could lead to all sorts of interesting debate... I think they just wanted obvious good guy/bad guy polemics rather than any sort of debate, and that delivering those obvious positions was more important than characterisation.

Why would Baltar’s love change her?Why would she believe him in the first place? I could understand if this was used to indicate the difference between the intellectual maturity of the Cylon race compared to the emotional maturity of the humaniform Cylons that arrive full-grown... but I don't think that's what they itended to highlight.

There seems to be a bit of a descrepency there.Has it ever been confirmed if the 13th tribe left Kobol at the same time as the general exodus? If they did, then this is a big discrepancy.

It would have been interesting if some of the pilots had died and Helo had to deal with the ramifications of that.With the necessity of destroying the Olympic Carrier being revisited several times it would've made an interesting comparison to see how Helo dealt with the ramifications of such an action compared to Lee.

We never did find out why the Cylons let Bulldog go. Was it just to kill Adama?Of all the episodes that shouldn't exist, this is one of the prime candidates. It's riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies. Why would a fleet so short of pilots not at least keep Bulldog on as a classroom instructor, if nothing else?

The interesting thing is as a mentally listed all the reasons I hated Kara Thrace in this episode, I had an epiphany as to why I love Lee Adama so much…but I’m not going to talk about that here.It'll be interesting to read along when you do talk about this :)

I'm one of the very few Kara/Lee shippers I know who actively dislikes the extended UB in comparison to the original - and it's mainly because I find I intensely dislike Kara in the extended version, and I'd rather stick with the aired version - because if the extended version is canon, I really don't want Kara anywhere near Lee.

There are some points about the episode I really like in either form, though - most particularly, Lee's boxing match with Helo. I find that fascinating - I want to know who challenged whom, because the implications in both directions are great character material.

didn’t work out the exact math, but it seems to me with the number of pilots they have, number of raptors they have, and the number of ships in the fleet they didn’t need to make five round trips.You're letting common sense and logic interfere with the need for Dramatic Problem of the Week ;)

So what if Kat lied about who she was? Wasn’t the fleet desperate for pilots? Why should her past matter?GIven Kara's complicity in the death of Zak and her actions in covering this up what right does she have to lecture Kat on hiding her past?

And as you say... what does it matter what she did before joining the fleet? It's unlikely that any one person (ignoring Baltar) let alone a single shuttle pilot make any great contribution to the fate of the 25 billion or so people killed during the Cylon attacks?

Should we be grateful they couldn't find a way to have him sleep with a Cylon on screen too?

Maybe he did. Were still waiting to find out who the fifth is.

Was the idea for Lee to become a marine? I remember hearing that he and Dee were going to get into shape by training with marines, but that was secondhand so I don't know how accurate it is.

It was in the podcast. The idea was thrown out in one of the 'What do we do with Lee?' meetings. Ron considered making Lee more hard core and, thankfully, saw they'd be leading Lee down yet another wrong path. Lee working with the marines in AMoS was a remnant of the idea.

Has it ever been confirmed if the 13th tribe left Kobol at the same time as the general exodus? If they did, then this is a big discrepancy.

Oh, it gets better. In 'Eye of Jupitor', Tyrol establishes the temple is 4,000 years old...around the time the 13th tribe left Kobol.

With the necessity of destroying the Olympic Carrier being revisited several times it would've made an interesting comparison to see how Helo dealt with the ramifications of such an action compared to Lee.

That would have been an interesting comparison!

because if the extended version is canon, I really don't want Kara anywhere near Lee.

Part 1

Why not just leave the humans alone and live separately? Hey, it worked for fifty years for them.

I think because Caprica and Boomer were in charge and they wanted to find their boyfriends, make nice and feel redeemed because they were one big fluffy occupational family. :/

that rules Laura out. And Gaeta seems such an obvious choice at this point.

You know I agree re: Gaeta and the Last Supper comment. I really hope the reveal isn't awful!

If Lee has changed so much, why not ask him what’s wrong?

This, and the corresponding comment about Kara in Torn, is a wonderful, simple question that sums up everything that's wrong with Adama's attitude to...everything.

But what if she lost all of that? Then what would she do?

I think by now she would stay, just because so much her identity is based on hating the cylons harder than anyone else in the Fleet so that she can prove she's not really a cylon. I think if that worldview fell apart at this point she'd break. I hope we see that in S4.5 cus her view is frakked.

“Adama wouldn’t lie to me.” I seem to recall Kara saying that same thing to Laura in KLG.

Awesome callback!

When Sam was asked by Laura to protect Maya and Maya’s child at all costs, shouldn’t he have suspected the child was Hera?

Could be a cool chance to retcon a Final Cylon moment? Like the Chief knowing where the Temple of Five was?

Yet, he gets NO thanks. It’s Adama to the rescue. Not that I’m bitter…

I am. ;)

As much as I love Laura and do feel she is the president they need, I find one aspect of her conversation with Zarek disturbing.

Yes. I agree. I try to view it as a part of her character arc but I am also disturbed by it in a way that I wasn't disturbed by her election thievery because there was no pretence that that was a happy ending type thing. This is just...frightening.

Especially since the writers could very easily have had a reason for Zarek to step down - that he was the Vice President of the administration that got them into this situation in the first place! - and had the quorum appoint Laura legally rather than this backdoor vice-presidential switcheroo.

Zarek looks pretty good for being in detention for four months…hmmmmm.

Now there's an interesting thought.

So was Laura “extending a general pardon for every human being in this fleet” a loophole?

Again, interesting!

She really believed what she was saying, not realizing that while Lee needs a mission, something to fight for, he doesn’t need it to be war. And when he takes up the mission to defend Baltar, not because he believes he’s innocent, but because he has a right to a fair trial and not to be humanities scapegoat, she walks out on him.

YES. I just don't get it. And it upsets me because I think it's damaged my appreciation of Dee. I know she's a quiet pragmatist, who thinks they should quietly rig the election and flush Baltar out an airlock and settle for Lee because you take the best you can get while you can get it and Dee manages it with an odd dignity. But where I lose it is her bizarre and blind idealism about who Lee is. I can't understand her being that blind given her pragmatic and unidealistic outlook toward everything else.

I still cannot believe they had Helo say, “They tried to live with us on New Caprica.”

I'm fascinated by that choice of line if only because it's one of the few times we ever see Helo get roundly smacked down. And it sort of fits cus like, I don't think he was saying that it worked on New Caprica, but that they tried and saying so from a perspective that was so removed from the experience of everyone who was there is was...like...horrifying, and completely inappropriate, but perhaps if people were dispassionate place it would be an interesting point when considering the personhood of the Cylon. The problem is, Helo's trying to have a conversation that's intellectually sound but completely insensitive to like everything.

Re: Part 1

Could be a cool chance to retcon a Final Cylon moment? Like the Chief knowing where the Temple of Five was?

Yeah. The Temple of Five moment I wonder if it will be touched upon in The Plan. And why was Tyrol drawn to it and not Sam who was also on the planet?

Yes. I agree. I try to view it as a part of her character arc but I am also disturbed by it in a way that I wasn't disturbed by her election thievery because there was no pretence that that was a happy ending type thing. This is just...frightening.

And I agree with you. The election fraud was wrong, but I understood her fears of a Baltar presidency and putting, in her mind, the best interests of the people first. While Zarek may not have been as good of a leader as her, he had done nothing to make her - or Adama - believe that he'd cause harm to the fleet or impede the quest to find earth. It was a case of what was best for her and Adama and putting their self interests above the law and that is scary.

Maybe because Dee is such a pragmatist she needs to put others on a pedestal to give her hope? But then Lee's idealism should be a turn on rather than a turn off. :/

I admit that I don't really get D'Anna either. But as far as I do, I think she's an attention whore; she wants everyone to pay attention to her because she doesn't know what she actually does want. So like, Hera is shiny, but she doesn't want the day to day job of caring for her. Gaius is shiny because she can steal him from Caprica. The final five are shiny because it elevates her and seems to provide direction. I basically think that everything she does is searching for attention masquerading as searching for a direction, or possibly I have that the wrong way around?

So what if Kat lied about who she was? Wasn’t the fleet desperate for pilots? Why should her past matter?

I'm not so sure. Possibly by now. But when they were first training pilots I got the impression that they were still trying to get people with at least some experience (Hotdog was a previous academy washout), and if Kat was both unsure of how picky they'd be and desperate to get into that first crop where they wanted them trained really fast or something? I dunno. You do have a point, but it wasn't something that bothered me.

Perhaps because it struck me as something Kat did for herself to get a new start as much as to get into the Fleet, and later it would have meant admitting to people who respected her that she lied.